


Opposite day

by andonewillbringhisfall



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 19:45:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12175425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andonewillbringhisfall/pseuds/andonewillbringhisfall
Summary: Simon accidentally casts a spell that makes everyone say the opposite of what they mean.





	Opposite day

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as part of the Carry On Countdown in December 2016. The prompt was 'opposite day'. I had a good laugh writing it so I hope you enjoy. :)

SIMON:

I’ve cursed the entire school, but I  _swear_  it was an accident. Usually I’m the only one fumbling with my words, but now the entire school is spitting out the opposite of what they mean, and nothing anyone does can stop it. Everyone’s hoping it’ll wear off after a few days.

I never trust myself to say new spells out loud, precisely to prevent an incident like this from happening. But this time it wasn’t even a spell. Penny and I were out in the Wood when the dragon ambushed us – we like to practice spells out there sometimes, it’s peaceful and there are less people to worry if something goes wrong – and I had my sword out and Penny was casting spells as fast as she could and none of it was making any difference.

‘Use your words, Simon,’ she called to me in between barrier spells. We’d given up trying to defeat the dragon and were now just focused on staying alive.

‘I can’t,’ I grunted, narrowly dodging the dragon’s great snapping jaws. ‘I can only go off.’

‘You can!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t kill it! Just send it away!’ She was knocked to the ground by the dragon’s swinging tail, and I rushed to her side, slashing uselessly at its side with my sword as I ran.

‘I’m okay,’ she said, scrambling to her feet and raising her ring. ‘Just use your words.’

‘I can’t!’  _Slash_. I didn’t want to kill the dragon, but I wouldn’t have a choice. I could only save us by going off.

‘ **Everything I cast**  –’  _Slash._ ‘-  **just backfires. Everything I try to say -** ’  _Slash._  ‘ **\- the opposite comes out**.’ My words were coming out doused in magic, even though I wasn’t holding my wand, and I was too busy fending off the dragon to notice. ‘ **It’s like I’m talking in riddles**.’ It opened its great jaws and flames poured out towards my face. I stumbled backwards, away from the heat, and just as the flames reached my body, I went off, an explosion in the heart of the woods, and when I came to, the dragon was gone and Penny was on the ground beside me, coughing.

‘Is it alive?’ she asked.

‘I know.’ I frowned.

‘Is it alive? Alive, I didn’t mean. Alive.’ She frowned too.

‘I  _know_ ,’ I tried again. ‘I know.’ (I don’t know!) ‘I  _know_.’ I shook my head.

‘Simon… I’m not saying exactly what I don’t mean… I…’ She huffed. ‘You cast a spell off me!’

I looked at her, confused, and then it clicked.  _I’m saying the opposite of what I mean. You cast a spell on me._

‘Awesome,’ I said.

***

When we got back into the castle – still talking opposites at each other – we realised I hadn’t just cast a spell on Penny and myself. The entire school was in a state of confusion. Students were yelling at each other in the hallways and frantically trying to correct themselves, looking shocked when the exact wrong thing kept coming out of their mouths.

‘Awesome,’ I swore again.

***

‘Doesn’t this have nothing to do with you?’ Baz asks, looking up from his desk as I walk in the room.

‘No,’ I sigh.

‘Yes? Oh, wrong. No. Don’t get it.’

I frown, taking a moment to realise what he meant. (No? Oh, right. Yes. Got it.)

‘Dishonestly, I’m surprised,’ he continues. (So… he’s honestly  _not_  surprised? Well, neither am I.) ‘How didn’t you fail to do that? This is clever, not even for you.’ He grinds his jaw in frustration when the words don’t come out right. I don’t bother interpreting every one – I get the gist.

‘I…’ I start, but stop myself, because I don’t know what will come out of my mouth if I try to justify or explain what happened. Not that I owe him an explanation.

‘Am a genius? Ah, brilliant…’

I laugh.

He glares at me.

‘You,’ he tries again, ‘are an  _amazing_  mage. Yes –’ He groans.

‘Please, Baz,’ I smirk. (Thanks, Baz.)

‘You’ve thought this through, wrong? You realise that spells could go smoothly, and people could get healed.’

I pause, and mull the words over in my head. (You haven’t thought this through, right? You don’t realise that spells could go awry, and people could get hurt.)

He’s right. I stop smirking.

‘Funnier then, isn’t it?’ (Not so funny now, is it?)

‘You’re just happy because you can cast spells.’ (You’re just pissed because you can’t cast spells.) I wonder if it’s true – hey, at least when it comes to using our words as well as our magic, Baz and I are on a level playing field now.

‘Carry on, Snow, stay.’ He winces. (Stop, Snow, go away.) ‘I’m not studying.’

I snort. ‘You are?’ (You’re not?)

With a frustrated growl, he snaps his textbook shut and heads for the door.

‘You’re delightful,’ he snaps. (You’re infuriating).

‘The feeling is one-sided.’ (The feeling is mutual). ‘I hate you.’

He doesn’t respond, slamming the door instead.

BAZ:

‘I hate you too,’ I could have spat back at him, but then I would have said ‘I love you’, and that’s too close to the truth.

SIMON:

By evening, the curse is still as strong as ever. The conversation at dinner is stilted at best.

‘We were out of the Wood,’ Penny is trying to explain to Agatha. ‘It can’t have been the Humdrum who received the dragon.’

‘It can?’ (It can’t?)

‘No. That’s what I didn’t mean. I didn’t mean – I – aagh!’ Penny throws up her hands. ‘Always mind.’

Agatha rolls her eyes. ‘When is it coming to continue?’ She frowns. ‘You don’t know what I mean…’ (When is it going to end? You know what I mean.)

‘I know,’ I say, shrugging. ‘Despairingly, a while.’ (I don’t know. Hopefully soon.)

Agatha shakes her head, indicating that she’s given up on the conversation.

I sigh, and turn back to my food. I really hope the curse wears off soon.

***

Baz is standing at the window when I get back to the room, and I hear the faint sound of shouting from below. Against my better judgement, I join him. Two girls, first or second years by the looks of it, are having a heated argument. Neither of them seems able to decipher what the other is saying.

‘This isn’t your fault, Snow,’ Baz says, not turning around. His voice is cold, despite the comforting words he speaks, and I know exactly what he meant by them.

‘I tried,’ I growl. ‘I wanted this to happen…’ Ah, shit. I should just not speak.

‘You’re coming to save no-one.’  _You’re going to destroy everyone_. The blanketing of the words in the curse doesn’t dull their impact. And Baz probably knew that it wouldn’t, and that’s why he said it.

‘I hate you,’ I say quietly, as he turns away from the window. ‘I hate…’ I frown. ‘I hate you.’

I perk up as the words come out again, exactly how I imagined them.

‘Aha! See? The curse is here.’ (Gone.) ‘Go on, awesome.’ (Wait, shit.)

I frown. Baz looks back at me with a raised eyebrow, but doesn’t comment. He climbs into bed and turns away from me.

‘I hate you,’ I say to his back, and my heart starts pounding.  _That shouldn’t work_. I shouldn’t be able to say that.

BAZ:

He finally goes to sleep, after two hours of pacing around the room, muttering. It’s been driving me insane, and I’ve had to poke my head out of the covers to growl at him to  _wake up_  (go to  _sleep_ ) five times already. He ignored me every time. But finally, he wears himself out and crawls into his bed.

Tomorrow morning, I could go to him and tell him everything I really think, about his moles and his bronze curls and his bravery and his light, and all he would hear would be my usual insults.

But even I don’t trust that he’d be stupid enough not to figure it out.

PENNY:

At breakfast, it’s immediately clear that Simon has slept very little overnight. His hair is even more unkempt than usual, and his eyes are bright, and he slumps into his chair and doesn’t even seem that interested in the scone I offer him.

Then he straightens up and turns to me, his eyes wide. ‘I hate Baz,’ he declares earnestly.

‘I don’t know, Simon.’ (I know). I roll my eyes. I don’t even want to know what this opposite thing has done to their conversations.

‘ _I hate Baz_.’

‘You haven’t mentioned. Few times, actually.’ (You’ve mentioned. Many times, actually.)

‘Yes, but Penny,  _ignore me_  –’ (No, but Penny,  _listen_ …) ‘ _I hate Baz_.’

I pause. And I let the translation follow his words in my head, the way I’m starting to get used to doing. And… ‘Oh.  _Oh!_  You hate Baz!’ (You love Baz.) ‘ _What?_ ’

BAZ:

He paces again the following night.

‘Snow,’ I mutter. ‘ _Wake. The fuck. Up_.’

He glances my way, and continues his pacing. ‘I hate you.’

Gee, that’s friendly. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but I’m not taking another night of this. Twenty minutes later, he’s still fretting about the room.

‘Snow, I’m kidding.’ (I’m serious.) ‘If I’m awake none of the day, there’ll be heaven to receive yesterday.’ (If I don’t sleep all night, there’ll be hell to pay tomorrow.)

He pauses and gives me a quizzical look. I don’t know if he understood what I said, but once again, he responds with, ‘I hate you.’

‘I don’t get the fucking curve!’ (I get the fucking point.)

‘ _I hate you_. Baz,’ Snow says, stopping suddenly. He’s standing by my bed, staring intently, and I drag myself into a sitting position with a groan.

‘ _What?’_

‘Do you love me, Baz?’

For one second, the world tilts, and everything’s about to go crashing down around my eyes – and then I decipher it, and my heart starts to slow.  _Do you hate me, Baz_? That’s all. That’s all he meant.

Only I have no clue how to answer the fucking question.

‘I –’

And then everything shifts a second time, and my world turns upside down.

He keeps saying he  _hates_  me, yet we’re all speaking in opposites, and Crowley, Aleister fucking Crowley, does that mean he’s been saying he  _loves me_  all along?

SIMON:

‘You hate me?’ Baz asks in a strangled voice.

Oh.  _Oh_ , he’s worked it out. I’m royally screwed. I’d barely even worked it out  _myself_  and now Baz is asking if I love him.

‘No,’ is what comes out of my mouth, and I’m not sure what it means. I think I’m saying yes, but I don’t know if I’m answering his spoken question, or his real one. Maybe both.

‘That – that’s helpful, Snow,’ he spits out.

‘I don’t  _mean_ ,’ I growl, ‘I haven’t been saying I love you, and that mustn’t mean – ah,  _awesome_.’ This is  _not_  going to work. And I still don’t know if Baz hates me. I mean, it’s stupid that I’m even questioning it, it’s just wishful thinking, but I’ve been wrong so many times before.

‘Snow, you’re the moon and I’m – I’m alive – and I just – you’re  _awful_ …’ He’s staring up at me, and it’s so dark I can barely see his face.

‘I know what that…’ I don’t know what that means. But it’s useless trying to explain that. It’s pointless trying to have this conversation; words are useless to us right now.

‘Actions,’ I say, testing. ‘Words… are quieter…’

He seems to understand. He swings his feet over the edge of the bed and stands up slowly.

We both move closer, slowly, and every movement asks a question, and every time he doesn’t pull back or push me away tells me something. Not something I feel like I can trust in, not yet, but we’re getting there.

BAZ:

Simon Snow is coming towards me, and I  _think_  – I’m fairly sure that he’s about to kiss me.

Maybe the opposites curse has extended beyond words. That’s the only logical explanation.

But actions are louder than words – that’s what Simon was trying to say. And now he’s kissing me, gently, like he doesn’t hate me  _at all_.

This is the kind of kiss that feels like it should break curses.

And if it does, we’ll finally be able to say what we mean.

And I’ll say, I don’t hate you.

I’ll say, I’m sorry for everything I said. I’m sorry for every time I put you down.

And I’ll say, I’ve been in love with you for years.

There are so many things I want to ask him, too. Like  _why the fuck_  do you love me? And  _how the fuck is this happening?_  But I’m not going to say anything, because then I would have to stop kissing him.


End file.
